


Intimate Conversations

by afteriwake



Series: nongentorum [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Beds, Cuddling & Snuggling, Danny-centric, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Kissing, POV Clara, Pillow Talk, Sharing a Bed, Talking, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 22:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6585040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One evening Danny and Clara are in bed and Clara asks him about a tattoo he has, and he explains the significance of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Intimate Conversations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sideofrawr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sideofrawr/gifts).



> So this is part of a new series of semi-connected one-shots I'll be writing that are connected in only a few ways: each fic is 900 words long, each fic mentions the number 900 in some way, and each fic starts with a sentence starter prompt from [this list](http://penaltywaltz.tumblr.com/post/142534142233/random-sentence-starters). Some of the ships were picked by my followers on Tumblr in celebration of hitting 900 followers there, and some are simply because I have a ton of asks in my inbox that are simply ships with no prompts that I need to clear away so I'm using them for this series. This first fic is for the lovely **sideofrawr** who had given me Danny/Clara for a 100 wrd drabble prompt and I chose the sentence “ _On a scale from, 'I can sometimes make important phone calls without crying' to 'I have a stable job with a steady income, a spouse who loves me, a dog, and two kids who are screwed up minimally at worst', how much of an adult are you?_ ” for this for her since she didn't want to browse the list of prompts since she was on mobile and it's long. I'll be doing these as often as I feel like for any ships I feel like writing in any fandom I want so...please enjoy!

“On a scale from, 'I can sometimes make important phone calls without crying' to 'I have a stable job with a steady income, a spouse who loves me, a dog, and two kids who are screwed up minimally at worst', how much of an adult are you?”

Danny grinned slightly as he gathered Clara in his arms, and she rested her head on his chest, the sheet riding higher up on her than it did on him, coming up nearly to her neck and leaving most of his chest bare. “I like to think I’m at ‘I spend most days not on the verge of tears,’ especially after I have a day where Augustus tries to disprove everything I say in class,” he said, looking down at her. “What about you, Clara? Where do you think you rate on that scale?”

“Not sure,” she said, settling in next to him and thinking about it. “Some days I think I have it together, other days I’m a complete mess. But I suppose even the most together adults feel that way sometimes.” She splayed her hand on his chest before running her forefinger across the small tattoo he had over his heart. She’d done so many times, run her fingers over the dark ink of the CM there or traced it idly when she thought Danny was asleep. She’d wondered what it was there for, whether it was the initials of an ex love he hadn’t had covered over, or someone at the orphanage who had meant something to him. She’d never thought to ask him, though, in case it was one of those questions that was just _too_ personal. 

Sometimes she wondered what that meant for them that she felt that they had questions like that.

“You can ask, you know,” he said, drawing her out of her thoughts. She lifted her head up to look at him, a questioning gaze in her eyes. “You run your fingers over the tattoo often. You can ask what it means. I’ll tell you. We’re working on being honest, remember?”

She nodded, sitting up more, her hair falling down and brushing across his chest as she moved. “Are they initials?” she asked. “Someone else you cared for once? Or someone who was important to you that you want to honour?”

He shook his head. “Nope,” he said, watching her fingers move over the tattoo.

“Then what does it stand for?” she asked, tracing the C for a moment before moving over to the M.

“It’s the Roman numeral for 900,” he said, settling a hand on her arm that was bracing herself so she could look at the tattoo. “When I was in the Army, I had a comrade who said his lucky number was 900. I asked him why, and he said in Chinese culture 9 was considered a lucky number because it meant long life, and he was born 900 days after his older brother exactly.”

She was quiet for a moment. “Is he still alive?” she asked hesitantly. He didn’t like talking about this part of his life, and even though he’d said she could ask, if it was a sad ending, he might not want to tell her. He might not appreciate her asking the question.

He gave her a small grin and nodded. “Lives in Devon with his wife and two daughters. When we got back here we got tattoos of each others lucky numbers in Roman numerals. I got the CM over my heart, and he got a n MCMXCIV tattoo on his arm.”

She frowned as she worked out what that was. “1,994?” she asked.

He nodded. “Mostly for the year. That was the year I got some interesting visitors when I was a boy. You might remember that evening. That was the day I learned that Dan the Action Man was rather important.”

She blushed slightly and ducked her head. They had talked about it, after the Doctor had been at the school, about everything. It still didn’t sit well, all of it, but they were _trying_ , which was something, at least. “That made more of an impact than I realized.”

“It did. A good one, I think.”

“Yeah?” she asked, looking back up at him again.

He moved his hand to tuck her hair back behind her ear as he nodded. “Yeah. And I’ll say I’m glad when I met the mysterious woman again she was just as pretty as I remembered.”

Her smile grew warmer and she inched her way closer to him. “So I should be glad I made an impact then?” she said.

“I think you should be, yeah,” he said with a nod.

“Well, then I’m glad I did,” she said before leaning in and kissing him softly. He let his hand move a little and tangle in her hair before cupping the back of her head to keep her close as he deepened the kiss. She let her fingers curl into his chest, enjoying the moment. She wasn’t quite sure what would happen, even if she had a possible inkling, having met Orson, but if she had learned one thing it was that so much of time was fluid and malleable and things could always change. Time could be rewritten, people could slip away. She wanted to hold onto all the moments she could in case they slipped away.


End file.
